How Big is Opening Night on the 26th?: Bigger than Politics

The wild 2010 NBA non-offseason is in the rear-view mirror. Training camps are in full swing all across the NBA landscape, with every player, coach, team, front office executive, ball boy, janitor and au-pair boasting about how improved everything is. There have been some hysterical pranks at Celtics camp showing how that proverbial "chemistry" gets developed. With the first pre-season game right around the corner this Wednesday the 6th, we can all finally get excited to watch some pseudo-real game action. But let's be real. Those games will be to see who makes the final few roster spots. The cosmic big bang will ignite on October 26th.

Rather than squaring off against the Green and the NBA’s new Big 3, the Boston Media Consortium has moved its previously scheduled Oct. 26 gubernatorial debate so as to not coincide with Celtics’ opening night.

That evening, the C’s begin their season at home against the new-look Miami Heat, who picked up MVP LeBron James and forward Chris Bosh in the off-season to complement star guard Dwyane Wade. The nationally televised game is one of the NBA season’s highlights.

The consortium, of which WBUR is a member, decided that it wants to ensure that voters tune in for the important debate. (It’s the final one of the campaign.) The debate will now be the night before, on Oct. 25. As State House News Service wrote, it’s “a relief to the subset of political junkies who are avid basketball fans, and vice versa.”

This is no joke, although many Bostonians wish it were. Make no mistake that politics is a huge deal around these parts, so for them to reschedule this at the behest of the Celtics/Heat collision is pretty impressive. Or just plain smart on the Boston Media Consortium's part. Like it or not, it's the world we currently live in where a game of this magnitude will destroy the debate on the ratings scale. Even Deval Patrick and Charlie Baker would rather watch Doc, Shaq, KG, LeBron and Wade hold healthy "debates" with the officials then discuss the text ban.